Drbc Issues Drought Warning 7 Million People Asked To Conserve Water

The Delaware River Basin Commission added its voice yesterday to the chorus calling for water conservation. And it warned that mandatory restrictions could be next for 7 million people.

"If the dry pattern continues, we could be in an emergency situation by Nov. 1," said Gerald Hansler, the commission's executive director.

The commission issued a drought warning, a step short of the drought emergency Hansler cited as a possibility. With a drought warning, people in parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Delaware are being asked to reduce their non-essential use of water.

Also yesterday, Gov. Tom Ridge created a Pennsylvania drought task force to deal with the water shortages.

The task force will work with county and local leaders, emergency managers and water managers to ensure maximum conservation, Ridge said.

"Just calling in a task force in a sense underlines the emergency of the situation," said Steve Miskin, a state spokesman.

On Sept. 1, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection issued its own drought warning for 43 eastern and central counties. Those counties include Berks, Bucks, Carbon, Lehigh, Monroe, Montgomery, Northampton and Schuylkill.

The DRBC's warning "basically has the same impact as did the warning from the state," said Daniel Koplish, Allentown's manager of water resources. "I think more people will become aware of it because they'll see a second warning from a second institution."

Forecasters predicted rain this weekend for eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey, but compared to what the area needs it'll be like a Dixie cup of water rather than a pitcher.

"What we need is a good three- to four-day soaking rain," said Steve Porter, meteorologist for the National Weather Service in the Lehigh Valley. "Just a few inches would help. It wouldn't cure it, but it certainly would help."

A light rain wouldn't be enough nor would a sudden, heavy rain that runs off quickly, he said.

Thunderstorms and intermittent showers are expected starting tonight and continuing tomorrow, possibly bringing more rain than the region has had for a month.

The last significant local rain was July 17, with 2.64 inches, according to the National Weather Service. Several times since then, the area has received negligible amounts of rain.

A dry spell dating to August 1994 triggered the drought warning. It is the basin's fifth-longest dry spell this century.

It included a winter with little rain and snow. Normally, water supplies are replenished from late fall to early spring when usually thirsty vegetation has died off or is dormant.

The basin has entered into a drought warning eight times since the early 1980s when the commission's drought management plan went into effect.

Two times, in 1981 and 1985, conditions worsened and drought emergencies were declared. The last drought warning occurred in fall 1993 and lasted less than three months.

Since the state's drought warning, some people have conserved by reducing usage as much as 15 percent, but others have not done so, according to Susan Rickens, a spokeswoman for the Department of Environmental Protection.

"Some people are just not taking it seriously enough," she said. "They've got to save more water. We are in a serious situation."

John Gier, water plant superintendent for Easton, said he has seen people washing cars and watering lawns since the state's drought warning.

"I don't know if it's an ignorance on their part that there is a drought warning or some people just don't care," he said.

Easton's Bureau of Water has enough water to serve the city and the five surrounding communities it serves, but its water consumers should conserve anyway to help people elsewhere, he said.

In Allentown, water usage has been down about 5 percent since Sept. 1, Koplish said. But he said that could be partly due to less swimming pool use and less watering of gardens and farmers' fields because many crops have been harvested.

Those in the Bethlehem area have been asked to conserve since July because of a leak in one of the city's reservoirs.

Calls for voluntary cutbacks in the use of water historically have been enough to ease problems, said Hansler of the basin commission.

"We have found that the public usually responds pretty well," he said. "The habits of the people who live in the basin over the long haul have changed in favor of conservation."

The drought has continued to hurt local farmers, including Urbane Byler of Slatington.

Every October, families pay to pick pumpkins from his fields. But this year, it's unlikely they'll reach full growth due to the drought.

So he's considering importing pumpkins.

"We're going to have to find some pumpkins somewhere else and have the pumpkin fairy put them in the pumpkin patch," he said.

For Allentown's parks, the drought warning -- if it had to come -- came at a good time, according to parks Superintendent Donald Marushak.

Trees are starting to go dormant for the winter when they don't need much water.